Atlas Hands
by moonstones42
Summary: Sherlock's faked his death and lives in hiding and depends on Molly as his only connection to his old life. John and Laura's relationship endures ups and downs as they continue their lives without him. Although Sherlock is welcomed back with open arms, his return after 3 years creates difficulties not even the great detective saw coming. Sequel to Last Smoke Before the Snowstorm


**A/N: Here we are at the sequel! Welcome back faithful readers! And if you've found yourself here without a clue what's happening, I suggest you go back and read Last Smoke Before the Snowstorm; it's a bit long, but definitely worth it. You could probably make your way through this without having read it, but you won't have a clue who Laura is or why everyone's so angsty...**

* * *

Laura Adler hated therapy. More specifically, she hated therapists. The child psychologists she'd apathetically decorated coloring books and played board games with in her youth; the grief counselors she'd numbly endured after her parents' deaths; the school advisers she'd begrudgingly sat through mandatory meetings with during her high school career. They'd been unanimously useless in her adolescence, and they were only more unhelpful now in the wake of another great loss.

Admittedly, she had benefitted from the legally mandated sessions with a rape counselor immediately following that traumatic afternoon. But beyond that, Laura only visited the run of the mill therapists her lawyer had recommended because John was so adamant about the wonders of psychiatric medicine. She knew it set him at ease, to think that his girlfriend was finally getting the help she needed. And so John ate up her assurances that all was well, and she pushed aside her guilt as she watched him desperately hold onto the pipe dream that Laura would one day have as inspiring a success story as he did.

But if anything, the shrinks had only done more damage to Laura's fragile psyche.

They'd sit in their dark brown leather armchairs surrounded by red oak furniture with bored expressions, and doodle listlessly in their notebooks as she talked. Or worse, they'd sit in their wicker chairs with biodegradable organic hemp cushions as they listened to her with the kind of pitying gaze charity donation commercials were designed to provoke. Then they'd put down their pens or stow away their canned sympathy for the next poor unfortunate soul. And once Laura had finished speaking, they'd move on to dismissing her every word.

Suggestions of "have you considered that your own actions somehow contributed to this outcome?", or "perhaps you misinterpreted his words? The mind plays tricks on us in distressing situations, you know," were frequent responses to Laura's description of what she'd endured. In other words, they all seemed in agreement that Laura had either imagined or somehow caused Sebastian Moran to cite James Moriarty as his reason for brutally beating and raping her.

No one had ever denied that Sebastian had raped her, and for that Laura supposed she ought to have been grateful; at least she didn't have to fight for the bare bones of her story to be accepted. Sherlock's reputation had been demolished, and Moriarty was erased from history and replaced with Richard Brooks, but there was no denying what Sebastian had done to her.

But what did seem to be up for debate in every therapist's office were Sebastian's motive for attacking her. With Moriarty now dismissed as an invention of Sherlock's fame-hungry mind, Laura's assertion that the criminal master mind was behind Sebastian's attack had been entirely discredited. Of course, this discrepancy didn't keep Laura from asserting the truth; Sebastian had told her why he'd done what he did, and Laura was determined not to keep quiet about it.

Laura incessantly fought back against her therapists' degrading diagnoses, refusing to stand by and let them claim that she'd misheard Sebastian or somehow prompted him to use that excuse. And the counselors would in turn attempt to placate her with yoga coupons and free incense, or prescriptions for pills that ultimately made it even harder for her to discern between her dreams and the waking world.

Laura began cutting her relationship with Sherlock out of her story after her first two therapists, Dr. Michaels and Dr. Yun, both told her she only held onto her belief in Moriarty's existence so she wouldn't have to face the reality of her fake-genius lover and his shameful suicide. But once she removed her affair with Sherlock from the equation, Dr. Bloom and Dr. Harris and Dr. Tyson all came to a new but equally untrue conclusion: Laura was merely projecting her troubled past on to current events that her brain linked together. In other words, she saw the world through a fractured lens because she was damaged goods.

The final straw arrived in the form of Dr. Cameron, who told Laura that a long-term exposure to mystery novels had caused her to borrow the excitement of a fictional world and project it into her own life. The supposed medical professional declared that Laura had connected the Jim from her past with the fictional Moriarty because it made for a good story. According to him, she'd been unable to deal with her sister's death and what Sebastian had done to her, so she'd concocted an elaborate conspiracy instead. Laura put an end to her therapy visits after that incredibly insulting and illogical ninety minute session.

However, she refrained from telling John that she'd given up on therapy. She made withdrawals from their account, took blank checks to the post and then shredded them, made regular appointments with imaginary doctors in her day planner. She knew John needed to believe she was getting help, even if it couldn't be farther from the truth. She'd sworn to look after him, and she would keep that promise even as all else in her life seemed destined to crumble and fall apart.

* * *

"We should tell someone."

John looked up from his plate of pasta to where Laura sat across from him, her wine glass having halted midway on its path to her mouth. She'd seemed distracted all evening, not having looked up when he'd arrived home with takeout from Angelo's as he did every Thursday night.

John was still far from healed enough to dine in the restaurant where he'd shared his first meal with his closest friend, but his therapist had suggested he at least make a habit of frequenting the place to get used to visiting the premises. So he'd devised a schedule, picking up Laura's favorite dishes once a week for a casual date night at her kitchen table.

But tonight had been different from the moment he'd walked in the door, and John got the feeling he was about to find out why.

"Tell who what?" he asked around a mouth full of alfredo, hoping this would be the sort of conversation he could continue eating through while offering the occasional grunt of agreement or denial. He knew based on her preoccupied demeanor all night that that would be too good to be true, but a man could dream.

"I don't know. Someone. The media, the newspapers, a journalist," Laura offered with forced nonchalance, and John halted his food intake when she still refrained from looking at him.

"And what are we telling them exactly?" he asked again, now not so sure he wanted an answer. He knew where this was going, but nonetheless hoped it would be something simple, something normal, something domestic. Something not related to-

"Sherlock. We should tell someone about Sherlock," Laura said as she lowered her glass back down to the table, her gaze finally meeting John's.

His dropped his fork onto his plate with a clatter, leaning back in his chair and running his hands over his face.

"Laura, we've _talked _about this-," he began with a tired sigh, but she cut him off with a surge of energy as she leaned forward, all illusions of a calm dinner shared between lovers chased away by her movement.

"No, John, _you've _talked about this. It was your decision, not mine; I didn't want it then and I don't want it now."

John opened his mouth to respond but she held up a hand for silence. And although a few months back he might have fought for his turn to speak, John had now grown accustomed to letting Laura have her moments. It was futile to interrupt her when she got like this, he'd learned over the past few months.

Sometimes, if he was in the mood for a row, he'd continuously interrupt her, egging her on, pushing her buttons until they were both screaming and raging and hurling the raw pain they both felt at each other like allies turned enemies by suffering too heavy for them to bear. But John had worked a double shift earlier today, and was thus rather tired. So he sat back and let Laura have her moment.

"He doesn't belong to you; you don't have some kind of monopoly on his story and who he was. What happened is as much my story as it is yours and his, and I want people to know the truth," she insisted in a loud voice.

"They won't believe you," John said absently for what felt like the hundredth time, despite the fact that they'd never had this conversation aloud before. But they'd argued over this same subject countless times, in unspoken words and gestures, in unreturned smiles and dodged kisses.

"How could you say that when we haven't even tried?" she asked, her voice weak now, and her eyes brimming with tears. John almost reached across the table for her hand, but he thought better of it. He'd rather not try at all than endure the sting of rejection he knew he'd face when she jerked away from his touch as she did so often nowadays.

"Because they want a story, Laura. And fake genius conspiracy sells better than the old washed up news of miracle detective who made them all look like idiots for so long," he told her in the kindest tones he could manage, working hard to keep the exasperation out of his voice.

"How can you say that? How can you just give up on him so easily?" she whispered, tears shining on her cheeks now, and all John wanted was to finish his asparagus and go to bed.

"I'm not giving up. I'm just...I'm just trying to move on as best I can," he told her, and he could almost see Laura shut him out. Her jaw hardened ever so slightly, her eyes narrowed, her fingers curled into fists. And he knew then and there that she'd never let go of the dead detective, that she'd continue shoving salt into wounds before they could even begin to heal.

He could see that she was desperate. She believed all she had left now was the pain; she was afraid that if she didn't have the pain, she wouldn't have anything at all.

John just wished he could somehow make her see that she would still always have him.

* * *

**A/N: Whew. That was pretty depressing. Well, like I said before, it starts off sad and then gets happy later on! What do you guys think of John's point of view? Keep bringing him in or no?**

**Next chapter things get exciting with Sherlock and the very first prose appearance of Molly Hooper! I am so glad I finally started writing this, it's so exciting! **


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